Features

James Ramsay MacDonald moved from a very modest and unpromising background in Lossiemouth to London and became prime minister. Even with a substantial historiography, MacDonald, according to historian Walter Reid, remains a difficult person to interpret. Reid is generally sympathetic towards MacDona

To Perth, and just a few steps from the busy Sheriff Court, Cardo has become an institution in the local dining scene. This year it celebrates its 20th anniversary – and continues to defy the economic and cultural headwinds that are laying waste to Britain’s restaurants. Cardo (Portugues

Officers of State v Earl of Haddington, (1823) 2 S. 420, (1830) 8 S. 867 & (1831) 9 S. (HL) 13 The second element of the ancients, Earth, provides the theme for the second in this quartet of weekly articles about the use of private law to protect the environment. Today we see property law invoke

The Inner House’s decision in Sarwar v Phlo Technologies Ltd [2026] CSIH 20 provides an important reminder of the limits of dismissal at debate in commercial litigation – particularly where waiver and personal bar are founded on complex contractual and factual matrices. In allowing a rec

Helen Duffy has been interested in human rights and driven by a desire to redress injustice since her youth. She now works as an international human rights lawyer, both as a professor of international human rights and humanitarian law at the University of Leiden in the Hague (Netherlands) and as hea

The success of England’s Martha’s Rule has strengthened calls for clearer escalation rights and greater patient involvement in Scotland’s healthcare system, where protections remain more limited, writes Michaela Guthrie. There has been much publicity about the positive impact of Ma

If polling, which has broadly held steady for the last 18 months, is to be believed and the SNP is returned to Bute House as predicted, by the end of this fifth consecutive term the party will have been in power for almost a quarter of a century. The scale of such an achievement would be hard to ove

The Contract (Formation and Remedies) (Scotland) Act 2026 received royal assent on 14 April. It marks a deliberate step toward modernising Scots contract law by making it clearer, more accessible and better aligned with how business is carried out in practice, writes Emma Wills. The Scots contract l

Lord Advocate v North British Railway Co (1894) 2 SLT 71 The soundly educational 21st-Century Bar Conference last December 5th heard Lord President Pentland forecast that “litigation about environmental issues will become a greater feature of our forum”.

The Care Home Swindler, the reader is told, purports to be, and is, the "gripping inside story" of a care home owner who took vast sums of money from his residents, with "an expose of the terrifying reality of what happens to the elderly behind closed doors". The care home owner, the reader is advis

To the ‘silver city of the North’, as it was once styled, and home to Scotland’s other Faculty of Advocates. Aberdeen is in the economic doldrums following the downturn in the North Sea, the current government’s reluctance to ‘drill baby drill’ and the failure of

The number of personal injury claims made following road traffic collisions is in sharp decline, writes Thomas Mitchell. Data from the government’s Compensation Recovery Unit (CRU) revealed that only 63,833 claims were registered with the CRU in the fourth quarter of 2025. This is down 24 per

Fergus Spowart and Sinéad Pow discuss why the construction industry needs a more strategic approach to debt recovery, what steps businesses can take and how these measures can protect cash flow while maintaining commercial relationships in an increasingly pressured market.  In the Scotti

The death of Elizabeth I in 1603 was the end of the Tudor dynasty and a long-unanswered question still remained: who was to succeed her? The answer had eluded English politicians, or at least those of them who initially took the long view. It came to pass, however, that the accession to the  En

The introduction of The Private Housing Rent Control (Exempt Property) (Scotland) Regulations 2026, which took effect from 1 April, represents a quietly significant moment for Scotland’s residential investment landscape, particularly for those advising on Build to Rent (BTR) schemes, writes St